An empty chair, an audience and an unfamiliar actor with a few pages of script, handed to him just minutes before he steps on to stage—this has been the defining structure of highly acclaimed Iranian writer Nassim Soleimanpour’s play, Blank.

This weekend, the actor in question is none other than Indian journalist and writer Raghu Karnad. Soleimanpour and Karnad will collaborate for Blank at the ongoing Tata Literature Live festival, where other literary highlights include Amitav Ghosh, Martin Amis and Nicholas Shakespeare, among others.

As the name suggests, in Soleimanpour’s upcoming play, the audience can literally chip in to fill in the ‘blanks’ in the script. “It is improv theatre at its best. We don’t know the subject or the purpose of the play, till we discover it right then on stage. There are gaps in the script which act as a catalyst between the actor and the audience and that’s when they are compelled to connect,” says Soleimanpour, whose award winning play White Rabbit, Red Rabbit with its no director, no rehearsals and no set format, explores a similar territory in theatre.

Karnad, who has dabbled in theatre during his college days, says this one is going to be a challenge. “I have been a journalist and a writer all my life, and though I enjoyed performing on stage, this will be an entirely new experience for me. I believe Nassim’s work is meant to surprise both the audience and the actor, and the fact that I have no idea what I will be performing makes it simpler for me. I don’t have to worry about a script,” says Karnad.

Interestingly, the play which is performed by a new actor every month aims at tapping into the communal and elusive nature of theatre. It was brought to life by Rehaan Engineer in August and will also be performed by Anurag Kashyap soon, clearly changing the dynamics, depending on the performer’s personal back story. “It’s who the performer is that adds to the soul of the script, and of course how the audience adds their own value to the gaps in the script,” says Soleimanpour.

Will Karnad’s first book (Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War) on World War 2 released just a year ago, or his experience of growing up with a famous father like Girish Karnad be part of the play? “I have no idea. Fact is that I spent most of my young life insisting nothing about me is inherited from my well-known parents. I enjoyed acting in college and theatre’s a medium that I have always been passionate about, so I’m just going to bank on that experience,” adds Karnad.
Catch Blank at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai at 9pm on November 19. Prithvitheatre.org